


december 23rd: silly old bear

by watergator



Series: december fic advent 2019 [23]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dogs, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: prompt: stuffed animaldan and phil have a problem with their new dog
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: december fic advent 2019 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559341
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	december 23rd: silly old bear

Dan finds Phil stood in the living room and before he can ask why he’s stood in the middle of the room like a lemon, he finally sees the fluff of white that is spread across the floor. It almost looks like a winter wonderland, and as he looks at Phil he notices the way his jaw hangs open just a little before he lets out a laugh.   
  
“She ate the bloody thing _again_?” Dan asks. Phil just nods meekly.   
  
He watches him as he crosses the room to pick up the poor little stuffed animal - or at least, what’s left of it.   
  
Cassie, their rescue dog on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.   
  
“Don’t be too mean, Dan,” Phil pouts as Dan holds up the limp, soggy and de-fluffed toy. “She doesn’t mean it!”   
  
Dan laughs, shaking the last of the fluff from the hanging corpse, both watch it slowly fall to the ground.   
  
“This is like, the fifth toy she’s eaten, Phil,” Dan says, looking up at where Phil is stood, raising his brows at him. “Don’t you think maybe we should stop buying her these?”   
  
He watches as Phil chews on his lip, brow creased like he’s in genuine deep thought.   
  
“Maybe this is her way of showing up she likes them,” Phil eventually says, his frown replaced with a look of enthusiasm, like he’s actually going to convince Dan he’s right.   
  
Instead, Dan just gently chucks the floppy dead stuffed animal toy in Phil’s direction, who by some force of god, he manages to catch.   
  
“If that’s the case,” Dan says as he starts to walk away, “I just don’t want her showing her love to other things she’s gonna get her little doggy paws on,” Dan says.   
  
Phil clutches the toy in his hand just as Dan stops at the doorway.    
  
“Don’t worry,” Phil says. “I’m gonna train her, trust me.”   
  
Dan looks at him and scoffs a playful laugh. “You think you can train her? Our big dumb lump of a dog?”   
  
Phil looks hurt for a moment before he nods. “Yeah,” he says. “And she’s not a big dumb lump.”   
  
Dan just gives him a questionable look that has Phil cracking a little with a sag of his shoulders.   
  
“Alright fine, maybe she’s a bit big and… ditzy at times.”   
  
Dan laughs, his lips curling into an unforgiving smile. “That’s one word for it.”   
  
“You love her,” Phil counteracts.   
  
Dan smiles a little softer this time.   
  
“Of course I do. I just don’t want her eating the furniture.”   
  
Phil holds the little sad toy to his chest like some sworn promise.   
  
“I’m gonna train her,” he tells him again. “She’s not gonna eat the furniture.”   
  
Dan huffs a laugh. “If you say so,” he says before he walks out, leaving Phil to clean the mess.   
  
*   
  
Cassie doesn’t eat any of the furniture. The bite marks in the PlayStation controllers Dan knows are already Phil’s, the little indents he recognises.

And Dan genuinely believes that Phil might actually be able to train their horse of a dog - that is until he walks into their bedroom one afternoon.

There’s mess everywhere; white fluff is all over the room, blanketing it once again in some faux fake snow. He looks around the room, looking for the source.

The pillows are still intact, as is the rest of the bedsheets, and for a moment Dan can’t think of what the everloving _ hell _ she could have gotten a hold of in here and—

Then it hits him. And he’s seeing red.

“Phil!” He stretches at the very top of his lungs.

Poor Phil comes running in, almost slipping on his socks before he steadies himself on Dan’s arm, looking at him with a bewildered look over the top of his glasses. He’s been having an email and paperwork day, still clad in his pyjamas and his hair is all floppy from where it’s gone unwashed.

“What?” He asks and Dan has to grit his teeth.

“The dog,” he spits angrily enough that it has Phil taking a steady step back. “The bloody dog ate my fucking bear.”

Phil finally manages to see the mess around him and his eyes go wide and his hand comes up to cover his mouth as he lets out a small gasp.

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” he says softly as he looks around, finally looking at Dan with a sorry kind of look.

He himself looks like a kicked puppy.

“Danny,” he says gently and that’s it. Dan knows he only pulls out  _ Danny  _ when he’s trying to win him over, but right now Dan doesn’t want to hear any of it.

“Just clear this fucking mess up, Phil,” he mutters, his voice having a bite to it.

Phil blinks, obviously aware now of how much trouble he must be in.

Dan’s staring down at what used to be his childhood bear, now just a few soggy shreds of sadness.

“I am sorry, Dan,” Phil isn’t moving, he’s just talking still and it only makes Dan feel angrier.

“She wouldn’t haven’t meant it, I don’t even know how she got to it, please don’t be too mad, Dan she—“

Dan cuts his rambling off with sharp and piercing look that has Phil snapping his mouth shut like a fish.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Dan tells him. “Just clear it up, yeah?”

Phil mumbles another apology and gets to work to picking them fluff off the carpet. Dan leaves the room listening to his sad little sigh.

*

The later it gets in the evening the longer Dan wonders if maybe tonight they’ll be going to be on an argument.

Dan’s in the living room whilst Phil’s taken refuge in the bedroom after Cassie had scuttled into the room after him, obviously aware of her mistake and wanting to avoid Dan all together today.

The tv is on but he’s not watching it. Instead he’s thinking about how angry he is; angry that Phil didn’t listen to him about their dogs bad habits and now how it had cost him.

He’s angry at Cassie for destroying something of his - it wasn’t even another stupid dog toy, but instead  _ his _ childhood bear.

And Phil doesn’t even have one of those.

Phil was gifted with so many toys and stuffed animals as a child that none held any real importance to him. When his parents moved out of his family home, they’d brought round a big sack of old childhood teddies, and Phil had either chucked the dirty ones out or donated the other ones.

Whereas Dan’s bear… that bear was given to him as a baby from his nana. It was the one and only bear he ever had in his bed, even when he went off to university, even as a bloody twenty eight year old man, he still loved that bear.

And now Phil’s carelessness had gotten it utterly destroyed, to the point that he couldn’t even ask Bryony to work her magic and fix it for him.

It was in the bin and gone forever.

He’s seething in his own self pity when he hears footsteps by the door, followed by four more gentle steps.

He doesn’t bother looking at them. He’s giving them the cold shoulder and all for the best reasons, he thinks.

“Are you still mad at me?” Phil asks in a meek voice.

Dan glances at him, but only quickly, just enough to see where he’s stood in the doorway like a naughty child, Cassie almost hiding behind his legs.

Dan looks back at the tv, pretending to pay attention.

“Yes,” he says in a flat voice. “The pair of you.”

There’s silence for a moment before Phil walks over to him, Cassie following close behind.

He doesn’t say anything as Phil sits beside him, folding his legs underneath him. He looks so sad and sorry but Dan’s determined not to crack and give in just yet.

“I really am sorry, Dan,” Phil says, almost pleading. “I didn’t mean for that to happen to your bear.”

Dan feels weirdly emotional, like he wants to cry or something, but instead he just blinks rapidly at the tv screen.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter now,” Dan says coldly. “Does it.”

Phil shifts in his seat. Just then Cassie must be able to sense the emotion between them because she’s resting her head right over Dan’s leg, which they both know she loves to do, especially if she’s looking for attention.

Dan’s eyes flicker down towards hers, big and round and pouty like, and he lifts a reluctant hand to give her head a little pat.

“I thought I’d be like some kind of dog mastermind,” he hears Phil start up again.

He turns his head to look at him. He has a glum look on his face.

“I thought that maybe training Cassie would be easy,” he says before looking down into his lap with a sigh. “I guess not.”

Dan says nothing and continues to look at him whilst his hand runs over the top of the dogs head.

Phil eventually looks up at him. “I've never had a dog before, you know that. I just wanted to prove that after all these years of me telling myself I could do it, that I  _ could  _ do it. Only for me to fail at basic training.”

He looks down away from Dan’s gaze again and sits back into the sofa with a defeated sigh.

Dan sighs too, quietly and questioningly.

“You didn’t fail,” Dan says, making Phil look up with a puzzled look.

“What?”

“You didn’t fail,” Dan repeats. 

Phil’s brows knit together in confusion.

“But… but she ate your bear?”

Dan sucks in long breath and looks to Cassie who’s still got her head rested against his though and her eyes closed as she starts to doze off.

“Yes, and I was upset about that,” Dan says as he looks to him again. “But it’s not the end of the world.”

Phil’s eyes go wide for a moment before returning to normal. “Are you sure? You seemed pretty mad about it.”

Dan does a half smile. “I was angry. Angry because it felt like something big and important in my life had just been destroyed forever,” he tells him.

“But it hadn’t,” he continues. “Cassie is a dog and we’re new to this. She’s a good dog and that’s because you care about her, Phil. A bear is just a bear. A dog is… Cassie is part of our family and I care more about you and her combined that some silly old bear.”

Phil’s face finally cracks into a grin.

“Really?” He croaks.

Dan nods before he pats the small space between them and Cassie jumps up. She’s far too big to squeeze in between them but she tries nonetheless, even if they all end up a bit squished.

Phil’s laughing as she leaves wet, slobbery kisses over his face and Dan’s giggling along with him.

Eventually she calms down and lays between them, ready to fall asleep in their laps like she does almost every night.

“You’re a good dog dad, Phil,” Dan whispers after some time.

Phil looks up from where he’s stroking at Cassie's head to look right at Dan.

“You think so?” He asks, unsure of himself still, and Dan nods.

“She’s still a baby, really, and you’re just a first time parent, nobody said it was gonna be easy.”

Phil snorts a laugh and for a moment it looks like there’s real tears in his eyes.

“Just wait until we’re real human baby dads then,” he jokes. “Then I’m gonna have a breakdown for real.”

He snaps his head up when Dan doesn’t say anything only for them to smile at one another.

“Oi,” Dan warms him with a playful grin. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves yet, hm?”

Phil smiles back just as hard. “Alright. Dog dads are good for now, hm?”

Dan smiles. “Yeah. For now.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


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